Guild Wars 2

So I’m in Brisbane and receive a notification that forces are invading Kessex and map over.

After struggling to complete a few events for 5 minutes or so (lack of players) the low population map dialogue pops up and although I know progress will be lost I accept.

Lo and behold, the new map I enter has about a minute remaining and so I’m unable to participate, get no reward and have to wait another 30 minutes for everything to start up again.

I’m sure i’m not the only one who has had similar problems in Silverwastes with low pop maps or when a disconnect occurs and you are taken to another empty map, only for the dialogue to pop up again a few minutes later.

If more and more sequenced events and areas are going to be designed on the basis that they can only be played where the map will be populated (Silverwastes and most of HOT by the looks of it) Changes need to be made to the current mega server set up and the issue of not automatically rejoining the same map if you are disconnected really needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

Given that blade shards can be obtained from the nodes in our home instance so there are more coming into the game all the time, some use for them would be appreciated.

Actually I only have 2 but I’m sure others will have more.

1: (essential this gets fixed or introduced) When a disconnect occurs or a player leaves the current map for a short period (5-10 mins) – they automatically return to the same map.

2: Mini map to display the vertical level the player is on similar to city maps.

BrooksP.4318:

May start a F2P account to try this, however I doubt I would use the same rule set. Doing a Iron Man challenge would be interesting.

I would suggest trying to play through to level 80 and completing all the personal story solo without dying (downed is o.k) would be challenging but doable now that Zhaitan Arah personal story scales for one person.

Obviously no tomes or other instant leveling items to be used and no leveling by crafting.

CETheLucid.3964:

Dawdler.8521:

You arent hardcore unless you do this in sPvP.

That would be awesome, honestly. Play the game modes as intended, but, don’t die. No second chances.

If all three caps are claimed, game over. If the enemy team is wiped, game over. Give bonuses, refuge, etc for each individual cap point.

I think custom arena’s have such an option (turn off respawning) for those inclined.

To get out of the starter area in GW1 Prophecies you had to participate in a PvP game I took 2 eventual legendary survivor characters in there – It was possible to skip it, but I never did – great fun!

Beldin.5498:

Even without those rules i sometimes wish people simply cared more about dying.
Personally as an old D2 Hardcore player i simply hate each death and try to avoid
it, and never understand when people cry that everything is sooooo easy, since
you can die here much faster than in most other MMOs i have played.

Sounds about right – I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been the last man standing in a dungeon and everyone is screaming at me to to get killed.

Randulf.7614:

Daroon.1736:

Randulf.7614:

I suspect they will when they activate roots/canopy sections of the map when the game goes live

Have all the Beta maps so far been all on one level then?

So far yes, unless something has changed with this BWE that I have missed. We could see possible areas to explore at the roots last time though.

How interesting – I had assumed that as I was gliding down or bouncing up, I was utilising the vertical design of the map.

All of this player disgruntlement could have been avoided weeks ago by simply posting in this thread or announcing on the patch notes page that the achievements that were added’ were for beta testing and would not carry over.

Why Anet (apparently purposely) continually fuels negative sentiment about their lack of communication is beyond me.

Randulf.7614:

I suspect they will when they activate roots/canopy sections of the map when the game goes live

Have all the Beta maps so far been all on one level then?

I assume this hasn’t been mentioned before as it seems rather a obvious addition.

Please can we have a 3 level mini map similar to those in the major cities?

Given that one of the major design ‘innovations’ for the HOT maps is the vertical nature of the maps, giving players some indication of where they are (Top/Middle/Bottom) would be very useful.

Player asks a question about information that has not been disseminated.

A) Dev reads and as the information being requested is pertinent to a lot of players and is a simple yes/no answer, takes less than a minute of their time to respond accordingly – Result: Everyone happy – Well done Anet +1 for communication

B) Dev reads and ignores. Result: This is why many players consider Anet’s communication to so be poor.

Judging by the amount of inadvertent skill pings I see in map chats, I’m not the only person who spends most of his time in game holding down the CTRL key so I can see resource nodes and other items of interest.

Anyone know of any reasons why we don’t have a show all option?

I’m not sure what Woodenpotatoes’s hardcore permadeath rules are but I did manage to get 3 characters the GW1 ‘Legendary Survivor’ title by playing through the game and not using items to gain XP or ever intentionally logging off or mapping to avoid death.

My advice based on those experiences would be:

Never play that character when you are having connection problems.

Ensure your character has the best available armour and weapons at all times

Stay in areas longer then you normally would to level up and ensure that you are well over the minimum level requirement before entering new areas.

Always ensure that you totally familiar with a new area before entering, similarly any quests or stories you undertake – if they require a group (GW1 had heroes/henchies) team with friends or Guildies.

That’s all I can think of off the top of my head – GW1 was a lot more linear then GW2 so you had to complete certain missions or story elements in order to open up the map. In theory I would say that it is probably going to be easier to ‘stay alive’ in GW2, but if I was attempting it, there would certainly be certain events that I would not consider participating in with that character.

Good luck and have fun – I know that playing this way adds a whole new dimension to the game.

Gator.5729:

Just a thought…

Are you using a new email address? When I purchased my alt account during one of the past sales it required a different email. It seems like only one account per email address.

Yes – The e-mail address was different to my main GW2 account.

As an aside – The view to posting ratio on this thread is very high, which suggests to me that many people (probably new players) who don’t have posting privileges are experiencing this problem and are unable to create accounts.

Anet – you need to look at this, as potentially a lot of new players will just get frustrated and give up.

Same problem here.

As I had several GW1 accounts and potential HOM rewards, I thought I would link another one of them, level a few more toons and maybe purchase HOT for that account in the future.

Went through the e-mail authentication procedure etc and now just keep getting this hugely informative error message.

Additionally, after trying to create the account, when I came to the forums and tried to log in – the user/password dialogue box wouldn’t even appear and all I was getting was a ‘you do not have access to GW2’ dialogue. This required CCcleaner to remove whatever Anet had decided to store in my browser.

Terrorsquad.4802:

Renny.6571:

I genuinely agree with all of these ideas, but if even half of them were implemented the queue times would be ridiculously long. Longer than what we have now.

I dont believe it would. Its due those facts mentioned above the PvP community is really small compared to other PvP communities.

If we would implent all changes said above, you’ll see old players return, more competitive scene and more players will stay in PvP.

This can only result in better matchmaking, because there are more ppl to pick from.

Most of the original suggestions seem quite reasonable but you have hit the nail on the head here – namely the pvp community is really small.

When the game as a whole has a healthy player base, why is it that so few people want to play unranked and ranked pvp?

Answer and address that issue and then and only then will things improve.

Nice to see this. I guess that I wasn’t the only player who decided that aside from having a quick look at the elites in the last beta, there was no incentive to encourage me into HOT.

If the achievements remain on the account it will have the desired effect and I for one, will actually play participate this time.

mrstealth.6701:

BondageBill.4021:

On the topic of clearly defining what you get for the $50 HoT price tag, I want to know if purchasing HoT will guarantee access to the full LS releases post HoT. Many people are assuming HoT will entitle them to all future content (until the next xpac), but ANet has already shown us that they are willing to charge existing customers for LS content.

If they’ve made any statements claiming LS3 is part of HoT, then they are obligated to let anyone owning the expansion access it. Putting it behind an additional paywall like they did with LS2 would make that false advertisement. I’m not certain if they have actually stated it so clearly.

In any case, charging for it would be a really crappy move on their part. Having to pay for LS2 chapters just because you weren’t actively playing is bad enough. Charging extra for content that is the main story element of an expansion they’re already charging for would be a new low.

I’m very surprised that more people haven’t come to the conclusion that HOT is Living story 3.

Most likely, towards the end of LS2, NCSoft demanded that the game needed to generate more revenue to make it sustainable and as a consequence, Anet were ‘required’ to expand on the existing work they had done in preparation for LS3 and sell it as an expansion.

My guess is that much of the ‘new’ map that previewed when HOT was first announced, was in fact already complete as part of the planned two week roll out for LS3 and since then all the LS teams have been frantically trying to expand the map to justify selling it as an expansion.

Personally I have no issue with this (assuming it is correct), I’ve enjoyed playing all the LS Free content and being asked to pay for a further 2-3 years of content seems quite reasonable. However, the asking price for HOT is far too high and (although it will never happen) perhaps a policy of truth would have brought more people on board.

Towards the end of the living world 2 season many threads appeared regarding cut-scenes and dialogue which could not be skipped when replaying for achievements.

Several were reworked to include a quick replay option but others were not, most notably ‘Dodgy Crowd’ which is one of the hardest and which appears right at the end of the instance so retrying requires you to go right through the whole instance again.

With the announcement that many ‘challenging’ achievements would be incorporated into the story instances in HOT – I thought it might be a good time to address this issue again in the hope that the Devs have considered this matter and this time have designed the instances so that replaying the achievements is part of the design and not an afterthought.

No more ‘Dodgy Crowd’ type achievements please unless I can skip straight to the boss fight when replaying.

Malediktus.9250:

Kruczek.3865:

Zera Allimatti.2541:

One-time awards like this are terrible for the majority of players. I hope ArenaNet never creates more one-tidme content like that. What I recommend is making an epic scavrnger hunt where players go out into the game world and do stuff to earn said skin.

I don’t agree with that. Imo it’s awesome when there are some extremely rare items in game and their amount is finite. I have Mini Karka and i love this item – mainly because it’s pretty rare. If there would be 1000 crows(black winged skinny thief human females) with Karkas in DR i would sell it instantly. Rarity of items makes you want them.

When Grinning Shield was relatively cheap(i had one but sold it :S) noone cared, it was just another skin. Now when it’s price is 4000+ k gold and the only way to obtain it is to pay that much – everyone(my friends and guildies) talks about this item and how badly they want it.

This man gets it.

I love my shield and Karka because they are rare and not because I like their look.

You may be shedding some tears or rage quitting when the Pact mastery vendor appears.

Sadly Anet doesn’t have a good track record when it comes to making previously unavailable items available again.

Maja.6372:

Hi all,

anyone else find it kinda wierd that the new Item Booster spawns a merchant when our inventory gets full while gathering ?

I mean if that happens you surely dont sell gathered stuff to the npc

I think it would be much more appropiate to spawn a merchant while gathering and you just ran out of gathering tools

“A new Item Booster is now available that grants crafting, gathering, and magic find benefits from a single source and summons a merchant if the player’s inventory is full after gathering resources.”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-August-11-2015

What do you think ?

I think the logic is that you sell all your junk items to the merchant thus freeing up inventory space for your newly acquired gathered resources – makes perfect sense to me.

laokoko.7403:

You dont’ want people doing daily AP to join your rank or unranked game.

Those are the types of people who would left after they capture a point or start losing.

Repeating the same post twice doesn’t make you point any more valid. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn’t – we’ll never know unless rewards get removed and the overall effect on PvP can be determined.

Personally as I have indicated I don’t believe this would happen. Your daily farmers are soon going to get bored of waiting for 3 minutes to rejoin a game they have no certainty of winning because they can’t autobalance, switch sides or leave without having to queue – Finding a vista to view in the Shiverpeaks or logging a couple of trees in maguma would become the preferred option to complete dailies and only those that actually want to play PvP would remain.

This might be naive of me but I assume the MMR is about producing balanced matches.

If so, instead of having those with high MMR’s sit around in queues waiting for 9 others of similar ability to come along, why can’t they be put into matches with players with average MMR’s – So long as an even number of high MMR players are placed on opposing teams, this should make for a balanced match.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Daroon.1736:

the root of these problems being (mainly) the professional win dailies.

then we remove profession win dailies, not hotjoin, einstein.

Couldn’t agree more – I haven’t seen a single post that indicates that everyone doesn’t agree that this isn’t the cause of all the problems in hotjoin.

Sadly though Anet seems intent on keeping the professional win dailies and allowing players to join and leave hotjoin games at will, so removing rewards (I never suggested removing hotjoin) seemed to me like a good topic for discussion.

Moonlit.6421:

Actually I rather liked my reasons.

No. For one I find it extremely boring to sit in the lobby and wait for a que in ranked or unranked by myself knowing I could likely be fighting a premade group. And no I’m not complaining about premades, I’m okay with them I just don’t fancy the idea of fighting them when I qued alone. Secondly I like hotjoin, it’s more fun to me. I like getting to play matches with the same people and getting a chance to chat, I like the more chill atmosphere, I like instantly being able to join. It’s just more fun to me and I don’t mind getting less reward because I enjoy it more anyways. Leave it like it is, people will play what they want to play lol.

Now see to me a fair summary of your main argument is that your upset more people don’t like your preferred game mode and since there’s a good amount of people that play hotjoin and enjoy it you think you can make your mode better by forcing hotjoin players to que up and join un/ranked games. This is a game, everyone gets fun out of it in their own way and I don’t want to nor will I be forced to play a game the way someone else wants me to just because they aren’t happy enough with their own form of play. If you want to do ranked and never go into hotjoin fine, that’s your decision, but please leave my game mode alone if you don’t like it then, thank you.

Actually I like your reasons too, but your wrong about the ‘my mode’ thing.
I too hate queuing, so seldom play un-ranked or ranked.

What I don’t see though when I play hotjoin, is the chill atmosphere you describe. What I see instead is the vast majority if players abusing the fact that they can choose or change sides for the whole duration of a match, quit without being penalized and sit in the queue and wait for an autobalance to join the winning side, with the root of these problems being (mainly) the professional win dailies.

Stebene.9275:

No removal! If you remove the rewards, it’s possible that PvP will be flooded with players that only go for the daily rewards which would make it even worse.

This seems to be a fair summary of the only main argument against removing rewards from Hotjoin and it is completely flawed.

Unranked and Ranked have matchmaking applied to them – the flood of players (if it happened) that everyone seems so concerned about, would have have very low MMR’s and would only end up playing each other. Anyone who has played unranked or ranked would be entirely unaffected as their MMR’s would be much higher.

Archon.6480:

Please, No! Leave Hot Join as it is.

It is the perfect catch-all for PvE AP farmers. They will migrate to Ranked and Unranked matches if you remove the rewards… And that would be bad. Like, really bad.

I can easily tolerate a new player in competitive matches, that wants to learn, but I can’t tolerate an AP farmer getting rofl stomped in 2s flat every 20s on my team. Noo thank you!

Yes, it would be a bad thing if that happened, but I don’t believe it would for 2 main reasons:

1) The amount of time taken to do the PvP dailies would be on par with the Pve ones, so the AP farmers would simply go back to PvE – What would be left would be an influx of those who do want to learn who would be subject to the matchmaking process and therefore (primarily, initially at least) be playing each other. Eventually, as these players progress and learn, you would benefit from reduced queue times and a healthier playerbase.

2) In addition to the above, playing unranked commits you to at least a 2 minute queue time and with no side switching and equal numbers, on top you have probably (at least) a further 2-3 minutes of game time before it might become apparent that the team they are on might lose and they quit – assuming they are going for the profession daily. This might be a problem initially. but I’m pretty sure that after a few days, those simply looking to complete their 4 dailies in PvP will just go elsewhere as the time commitment is too great when you cannot guarantee a win because the ability to queue sit and join the winning team or switch sides mid match no longer exist.

So to clarify: We now have

1) Item Booster which has all the benefits you used to get from the Magic Find + Crafting+ Gathering boosters all at once AND for a longer duration AND is much cheaper

2)Experience Booster which has all the benefits you used to get from the Exp + Wxp + killstreak boosters AND Gives 50% reward track progress AND lasts longer AND is much cheaper.

Certainly this a great thing going forward but for those that have already purchased these items I think the very least that should be happening is either all the old boosters are automatically converted 1:1 into the new types or a merchant is introduced where they can be exchanged 1:1

Nova Stiker.8396:

Daroon.1736:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Well, the new experience booster is out. Hotjoin is right now EVEN MORE TOXIC. People constantly swapping sides for rewards.

The problem is not the rewards, the problem is people do that kitten and still get rewarded.

_

ArenaNet, this is 99% of your PvP matches. All of your PvP matches that goes on, this is the 99%. At one point is this okay?

Yup – there’s more of a chance that a Dev will respond to a this thread than finding a 5v5 match in hotjoin, yet I’ve seen so many posts where a player playing a ranked game complains about losing a game and a Dev is in their like a shot providing a detailed explanation of their win/loss ration. how their % chance of winning the game was calculated, etc etc -

Please Anet, put some time and effort into fixing where the VAST majority of your players are playing PvP – What is ironic is that If the same risk v reward scenario existed anywhere in PvE, it would be deemed an exploit and fixed immediately.

Red resign day. Any GW1 vet knows that all to well. ArenaNet has an entire history of letting PvP to have exploiting issues.

What the hell is the design team doing?

I very rarely played PvP in Gw1 but even I remember that – As I recall though there wasn’t the incentive of easy rewards though.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Well, the new experience booster is out. Hotjoin is right now EVEN MORE TOXIC. People constantly swapping sides for rewards.

The problem is not the rewards, the problem is people do that kitten and still get rewarded.

_

ArenaNet, this is 99% of your PvP matches. All of your PvP matches that goes on, this is the 99%. At one point is this okay?

Yup – there’s more of a chance that a Dev will respond to a this thread than finding a 5v5 match in hotjoin, yet I’ve seen so many posts where a player playing a ranked game complains about losing a game and a Dev is in their like a shot providing a detailed explanation of their win/loss ration. how their % chance of winning the game was calculated, etc etc -

Please Anet, put some time and effort into fixing where the VAST majority of your players are playing PvP – What is ironic is that If the same risk v reward scenario existed anywhere in PvE, it would be deemed an exploit and fixed immediately.

nottsgman.8206:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Boost_Enchantment_Powder
technically already exists (new boosters, apart from heroic, are in the Enchanted Reward Boost)

No – Not quite – these just save inventory space and allow you to choose one of the now defunct old style booster which are much less powerful.

My guess is these and the associated powders etc to make them, have or will also be removed from the game.

Also you had to buy the extra ingredients just for the convenience of converting the single boosters into the choose on click type – now your 3 types are all combined into a single booster.

Given that the acquisition of the vast majority of the old type boosters in the game would have been through BL Chests/Keys and therefore from Gem Sales, I think a lot of people would appreciate some way of clearing their bank space and converting them to the new style booster sets.

A forge recipe perhaps?

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Nova Stiker.8396:

zaxon.6819:

no.. it will just push pve people into unranked.

No… It will push PvPers into unranked. Dont force me to wait 15 minutes to play a 7 minute match.

no. ppl will stop playing for good.

enjoy your longer queue times.

What is the relationship between removing rewards from hotjoin and increased queue times in unranked? Logically it will be the other way round, the more players playing unranked, the shorter the queue times.

The only ppl who might stop playing are those currently playing hotjoin for their easy dailies and they will just do PvE dailies instead. The remainder who prefer doing them in PvP are just the sort of players you need to increase the player base and reduce queue times.

The only other common argument that seems to have come out of this thread is from players who don’t want a sudden influx of inexperienced to players because they think they might get teamed up with some of them.

The main catalyst of course to this discussion is the class win dailies, which are the cause of the chaos in hotjoin – Another simple solution would be to replace these with a class full match participation daily where the player needs to be present and active for the whole match.

Incantus.8960:

wat? I have never touched anything except ranked/unranked since I started the game, had no idea the dailies were more easily done in hotjoin either.

I think most players like me, who are relatively new, go for the unranked button, because that is literally the first thing that pops into your face as you enter pvp, I dont even know what hotjoin is :S

Good for you – Stay where you are.

If you do happen to investigate hotjoin, I would be very interested to hear your thoughts.

runeblade.7514:

It will not teach players how to PvP regardless on how much you say it does. In fact, it will drive new players away because I will be hostile to them for being in my team.

This is summing up why rewards should not be removed from hotjoin. Unless you like playing with ragequitters and afkers.

If I don’t foresee my team winning, I’ll just afk because it is a waste of time. I will double cap just so I can get my daily capture done. I will play ineffectively like I always did in Hotjoin to get my dailies done in unranked and ranked.

I can’t even contemplate how to come up with a reasonable counter argument to this.

runeblade.7514:

Let me be at home where I can ragequit easily if I am not having a great match, then I will not go over to unrank and ranked to ruin everyone’s matches.

Indeed you and many more would do PvE dailies instead and the remainder who do want a fairer game would help grow the PvP community.

Thank you for summing up perfectly why rewards should be removed from hotjoin.

runeblade.7514:

Cons:

• I will afk the match more frequently, especially if my team is losing.
• I will be hostile against inexperienced players for joining and I will tell them repeatedly to go play PvE.

I admire your honesty in declaring yourself as part of the problem rather then looking for a solution.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Daroon.1736:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Daroon.1736:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Wolfey.3407:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Wolfey.3407:

… You’re a forum specialist? Thank you good sir. <3

Anyways. I prefer my suggestion. Expand PvP to enrich the experience, don’t restrict more to force people to queue :\

Wasn’t sure if the first line was meant to be an insult or not o.O

Your suggestion is good, my only concern is a flood gate type of scenario.

It was a complement. The amount of loyal fanboyism this beta weekend is toxic.

If they actually do my suggestion, it would be for the best for ArenaNet to remove unranked as there will be no reason for it. (Random Arena-style mode would replace it, and be community building)

ArenaNet seems to forget friendships are forged better when you play with a team for 5+ rounds.

Ah ok, can never tell :P some people usually use that line when they are getting ready to roast me on something.

Ideally, I would personally like to see PvP reverted back to:
Hot Join
Solo Arena
Team Arena

With more restrictions added to Team Arena to prevent solo queue within it. Solo Arena before, you couldn’t team up so that’s fine. Then Hot Join, could do what you suggested in regards to that particular area.

It was fine but still far from ideal. One thing GW2 lacks more so than PvP leagues is a healthy PvP community.

Do you not think that hotjoin in it’s current state is one of the primary reasons more people don’t play PvP and the community is so small?

Anet seems intent on trying to build the PvP game from the top down, which to me is just silly. As far as I can see all the time and resources that are available are being put into things like promoting elite high level tournaments and constant tinkering with the formulas for trying to create balanced matches in ranked arena’s – How about worrying about the bottom end where the vast majority are getting their first experiences of pvp – fix that and you at least have some hope that the community will grow.

no.

the reason because the pvp community is small is because people do not like to wait 5 minutes before playing a match.

Huh!? – Removing the ability to do dailies in hotjoin means players would play unranked instead and queue times would be shorter!

no. people will stop playing pvp all together.

queue times will never be shorter.

you are also forgetting the mandatory 2 minutes wait before a match can even begin.

wait at least 2+ minutes for queue to pop.
wait 2 minutes before the match even begins.

enjoy match with terrible match making, afk players, 4 vs 5, toxic behavior etc

i like hotjoin the way it is now, though some improvements could be made, unfortunately those improvements will never arrive.

because esprouts.

Sorry if I sound like a TV Sci-Fi character but your points are ‘illogical’

(no. people will stop playing pvp all together.) If you remove rewards from hotjoin, what leads you to believe all those currently playing unranked and ranked will stop playing?

(queue times will never be shorter.) the more players there are playing unranked and ranked, the shorter the queue times.

(you are also forgetting the mandatory 2 minutes wait before a match can even begin.
wait at least 2+ minutes for queue to pop.
wait 2 minutes before the match even begins. ) Again, how does removing rewards from hotjoin change this is any way?

(enjoy match with terrible match making, afk players, 4 vs 5, toxic behavior etc) matchmaking would be significantly improved if there were more players playing unranked/ranked – In my experience 4v5 matches happen quite infrequently in unranked/ranked whereas in hotjoin I haven’t even seen a 5v5 for the whole game for at least a year.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Daroon.1736:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Wolfey.3407:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Wolfey.3407:

… You’re a forum specialist? Thank you good sir. <3

Anyways. I prefer my suggestion. Expand PvP to enrich the experience, don’t restrict more to force people to queue :\

Wasn’t sure if the first line was meant to be an insult or not o.O

Your suggestion is good, my only concern is a flood gate type of scenario.

It was a complement. The amount of loyal fanboyism this beta weekend is toxic.

If they actually do my suggestion, it would be for the best for ArenaNet to remove unranked as there will be no reason for it. (Random Arena-style mode would replace it, and be community building)

ArenaNet seems to forget friendships are forged better when you play with a team for 5+ rounds.

Ah ok, can never tell :P some people usually use that line when they are getting ready to roast me on something.

Ideally, I would personally like to see PvP reverted back to:
Hot Join
Solo Arena
Team Arena

With more restrictions added to Team Arena to prevent solo queue within it. Solo Arena before, you couldn’t team up so that’s fine. Then Hot Join, could do what you suggested in regards to that particular area.

It was fine but still far from ideal. One thing GW2 lacks more so than PvP leagues is a healthy PvP community.

Do you not think that hotjoin in it’s current state is one of the primary reasons more people don’t play PvP and the community is so small?

Anet seems intent on trying to build the PvP game from the top down, which to me is just silly. As far as I can see all the time and resources that are available are being put into things like promoting elite high level tournaments and constant tinkering with the formulas for trying to create balanced matches in ranked arena’s – How about worrying about the bottom end where the vast majority are getting their first experiences of pvp – fix that and you at least have some hope that the community will grow.

no.

the reason because the pvp community is small is because people do not like to wait 5 minutes before playing a match.

Huh!? – Removing the ability to do dailies in hotjoin means players would play unranked instead and queue times would be shorter!

Nova Stiker.8396:

Wolfey.3407:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Wolfey.3407:

… You’re a forum specialist? Thank you good sir. <3

Anyways. I prefer my suggestion. Expand PvP to enrich the experience, don’t restrict more to force people to queue :\

Wasn’t sure if the first line was meant to be an insult or not o.O

Your suggestion is good, my only concern is a flood gate type of scenario.

It was a complement. The amount of loyal fanboyism this beta weekend is toxic.

If they actually do my suggestion, it would be for the best for ArenaNet to remove unranked as there will be no reason for it. (Random Arena-style mode would replace it, and be community building)

ArenaNet seems to forget friendships are forged better when you play with a team for 5+ rounds.

Ah ok, can never tell :P some people usually use that line when they are getting ready to roast me on something.

Ideally, I would personally like to see PvP reverted back to:
Hot Join
Solo Arena
Team Arena

With more restrictions added to Team Arena to prevent solo queue within it. Solo Arena before, you couldn’t team up so that’s fine. Then Hot Join, could do what you suggested in regards to that particular area.

It was fine but still far from ideal. One thing GW2 lacks more so than PvP leagues is a healthy PvP community.

Do you not think that hotjoin in it’s current state is one of the primary reasons more people don’t play PvP and the community is so small?

Anet seems intent on trying to build the PvP game from the top down, which to me is just silly. As far as I can see all the time and resources that are available are being put into things like promoting elite high level tournaments and constant tinkering with the formulas for trying to create balanced matches in ranked arena’s – How about worrying about the bottom end where the vast majority are getting their first experiences of pvp – fix that and you at least have some hope that the community will grow.

The main issue I see at the moment is the Dev’s seem to totally ignore any threads about hotjoin/practice (and there have been many) that suggest valid changes, like the ones posters have made here, which is why I believe removing rewards would be the simplest and most beneficial solution.

Certainly one of the keys to my suggestion is that punitive measures need to be employed to deter leaving during a game – IMHO if that issue could be tackled then many of the potential negatives discussed here, could be avoided and un-ranked would not become the new hotjoin

Lowering queue times is not one of the aims of the suggestion, I just think it would be one of the benefits – the main aim IS to get rid of the current iteration of hotjoin and channel players into trying a game mode which is fun, when one is playing a reasonably balanced game.

Josh’s ‘New to PvP? Start here’ post specifically directs new players to hotjoin as a place to ‘get their feet wet’ – I think it’s safe to say he probably hasn’t joined a hotjoin game since he wrote the post a couple of years ago, other wise he would have edited it to ‘New to Pvp? Do Not start here’.

Sadly the sort of experience are new players getting in hotjoin is likely to put them off PvP for life.

All rewards to be removed from hotjoin – No rank, No dailies.

Pro’s:
Many more players will play un-ranked for their dailies resulting in much shorter queue times.

Leaving matches will occur less frequently ( I haven’t ever left a an unranked match so I am assuming that dishonor is applied – if not it should be) resulting in a much better experience for all.

The matching process will mean that more inexperienced players will actually have the opportunity to play in a more balanced environment which can only grow the numbers playing pvp regularly.

Cons

None.

Anyone believe they have a good argument as to why rewards should be given out in in hotjoin/practice other than ’it’s an easy place to do my dailies’ which has created the mess that it is in now.

Velimere.7685:

That’s just the way Stronghold works: One team starts snowballing, the other team has no chance to recover whatsoever, and it’s always decided early on in the match.

Disagree – just played a match where we had a player disconnect and were 4v5 at the start. My team defended and by the time he reconnected they had attacked our lord and we had yet to breach their outer gate. Suffice to say once back to 5v5 we won the match so recovery is not impossible.

Maybe it is because this map has only been available in unranked and ranked and I don’t usually play there – but I’ve always found it to a fun map. However this could be due to the fact that and barring dissconects, both teams have equal number of players throughout the match, unlike hotjoin which is a joke.

skullmount.1758:

Can you not select any of the pact tyria mastery line(s)?
Do remember, they said you can only level the Maguuma ones while you are in the Maguuma jungle map(s) (not sure if that includes SW and DTop), and pact tyria lines anywhere.

Pact tyria line is selectable but when you go back to the ‘normal’ maps no progress is being made.

Fox.3469:

you need to gain xp to be able to spend masteries in the line, activate one you want to train, then kill things

Did that – completed a number of events and hearts – filled the xp bar and went back to HOT to check the mastery tab (it is not showing in normal open world) and no progress had been made.

Also still no sign whatsoever of bonus map rewards which were definitely supposed to be switched on.

Once I leave the HOT area my XP bar reverts to normal so no mastery progress in Precursor crafting is occurring and I’m getting no indication at all that the map bonus reward system is active or working.

Where these things supposed to both be active – If so what are others seeing?

I’m wandering about bloodtide doing stuff and I’m not seeing anything that indicates that this is switched on

4 consumables on a small optional bar above utilities:

NinjaEd.3946:

Idk how you can fill up enough consumables to make it a problem but in a way you already have a consumable bar. Heck, its better than that its a permanent bank access consumable just costs a ridiculous amount.

I don’t know what type of consumables the OP had in mind but I was thinking more of a bar for these items:

http://dulfy.net/2013/01/16/gw2-useful-and-fun-consumables-guide/

For those who have never really payed any attention to them, there are over 30 that either provide buffs/debuffs, stealth, healing capability or function as additional weapon types.

Ithilwen.1529:

I’m a relatively “end-game” player. Roughly 5400 hours have seen me crossing and re-crossing Tyria.

Recently, I’ve been looking to get or build my second legendary, The Incinerator.

Here’s my point; I could easily choose to buy the gems and buy the pretty dagger. The problem isn’t finance it’s the principle of the thing. Speculation has driven the price to something like 300 USD.

That’s just insulting. So, I gameplay for the money. It’s slower, but I don’t feel like I’m being ripped off.

So, ANET loses the money from that transaction. I’d spend 100 USD for a vanity item, but 300 is just beyond the pale for a video game.

In high school history class we would have called this a case of “elastic demand.”

My suggestion; ANET should cap trading post prices to nerf speculation. This will ultimately increase micro transactions and serve the game by keeping prices reasonable.

In my high school psychology class they would have called paying even $100 for a virtual item a case of ‘insanity’.

I’m at 3981 hours and with the two precursors I have had as drops I was easily able to craft both legendary’s primarily from items gained through playing.